A wee question to start with. Have you ever been to Larbert? Not many folk have; there are quite a few, I'm willing to bet, that have never heard of it. If you get the Aberdeen or Dunblane train from Queen Street, Larbert is the stop before Stirling. That was all I knew about the place, having passed it many times when I was at Stirling University. Then, about thirty years ago, I went with a pal from Dumfries to watch QOS playing there. That was when I discovered that Stenhousemuir came from Larbert.
The football ground was falling to pieces - literally. A wee guy climbed over the bar in front of the terraces and leaned against it. The whole thing, which was the length of the pitch, fell back and him with it. Everybody in the crowd, the police and even the players and referee had a good laugh. When we first entered the ground we were told we could go into the enclosure for an extra 50p. We paid and received a ticket that had 3d printed on it. At half-time the locals warned us against some of the food on sale. There were iced doughnuts that one old boy swore had been there since 1949!
So where am I going with this? Well, it's just an illustration of how Stenhousemuir was, and probably still is, run on a shoestring budget. The crowd knew the players personally and probably worked beside them during the week. The atmosphere was one of enjoyment and being out for a good laugh and nobody took themselves too seriously, except for a couple of wee neds from Dumfries that were looking for a fight.
Now, wee teams like Stenny sometimes come up against the big guns in cup competitions. They'll try their hardest but don't really expect to get anywhere. Now they have in their league a team that is spending more on players than even the teams in the Premiership, bar Celtic. Does such a team deserve bragging rights if it beats wee Stenny 8-0? You would think not, but to listen to the Ersatzers crow you'd think they'd just thrashed Barcelona in the Champions League!
Before the match they decided to have a repeat of the tawdry spectacle on display on Remembrance Day last year. After making a mockery of Remembrance Day they decided this time round to have an Armed Forces Day. Why they insist on holding these events, reminiscent of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, is anybody's guess. If they loved the armed services that much then they should stump up the tax that the Big Lie helped them weasel out of. While they're all stamping and cheering and giving a metaphorical pat on the back to the forces, our troops have to operate in Helmand with one SLR between three of them!
As to the sectarian singing, I'm going to give the sodjers the benefit of the doubt. People join the army usually because they can't do anything else. They failed at school and they have no prospects whatsoever. In fact, most of them fit the description that Jack Irvine gave about John Greig! Given this it is debatable if they even knew what they were singing about. Still, if the Ersatzers are going to continue with this type of thing they might want to invest in a new songbook. Might I suggest 'Pack Up Your Troubles' and 'It's A Long Way To Tipperary'?
A big thank you, however, is due to the Ibrox boardroom for waiting until I was back online before releasing their accounts. Unusually for Ibrox, the accounts have actually been signed off. Typically for Ibrox, however, nobody is saying who signed them. They probably just advertised for somebody that knows his times tables.
So what do the accounts tell us? Well, to anybody else, a business running at a loss of over £1m a month would be seen to be a spectacular failure; not to the Ersatzers, though. No, wait, I tell a lie; only some of them think that things are going well. Others see this as the time for Sugar Daddy McColl to come steaming in to the rescue. How the hell he's going to make things any better, however, since he refuses to put his hand in his pocket, is a mystery. From those that think the accounts are positive we get the usual garbage about 'Onwards and Upwards' and 'Five Year Plans' even though it is obvious to anybody with a basic grasp of arithmetic that their new club is headed down the shitter, just like their old one.
Of course, Bill McMurdo is one of the ones that thinks that it's all good news. 'With accounts in line with projections, money in the bank, no debt, strong income streams and robust sponsorship, Rangers look not bad for the future,' he says. That little statement should make any right-minded person fell sick to their stomach, especially the 'no debt' bit. As many a person has pointed out before, they really have no shame!
One major point about the accounts is that nowhere is 'the club' listed as an asset; in other words, the club is the company and is, in fact, a new club. Craig Mather says that Green and his cohorts bought the 'assets of the club' but then says that they bought ' the club.' So which is it? It really is time that this massive fraud was portrayed as what it really is. Is there any other country in the world where such ridiculous mendacity would be allowed, or where honest journalists live in fear, for their jobs and even their lives, of questioning this fraud?
Meanwhile, the accounts show that Ersatz FC is being as prodigal as its predecessor. The most shocking item has to be the salary being paid to Sooperally. £825,000 a year he's pocketing! No wonder he doesn't do walking away - he can't! He'd need a crane to lift his wallet. Some of the Ersatzers see this as something to be proud of, the fact that Sooper earns more than Neil Lennon or any other Scottish manager. Of course, Sooperally has made a big thing about taking a reduction in wages, a reduction that Craig Mather claims is 'substantial.' To many people, £25,000 a year would be a substantial salary. It's my guess that this is the amount of Sooperally's wage reduction. The only people that don't want him to have his salary reduced are the board of directors at Greggs.
We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what Loony Leggat has to say about the accounts. In the meantime he's still lashing out at all and sundry. I suppose life has never been the same for him since they stopped selling Lanliq; other drinks can't quite cut it. I still can't believe that this guy was ever employed as a journalist; I suppose the secret handshake still counted for something back then. In amongst the drunken ramblings he manages to come up with one salient piece of information and even a witticism. The information is that 'Rangers are treated as a start-up company by Companies House.' That'll be because they are!
His witticism? '...a blogger who seems to claim he is the Scottish re-incarnation of Merlin,' obviously meaning McMurdo, which, given the latter's nonsensical theories about history, fits him quite well! Maybe Leggat was having a sober moment there!
Back to the accounts and there is still no sign of who actually owns Ibrox. Both sides, those pro- and anti- the current board, are accusing each other of planning to sell the dump and then lease it back. For all anyone knows, however, this might already be happening. Ibrox is listed as one of the assets but whose asset is it? With all this holding-company nonsense it is hard to see who actually owns what. When I applied for a credit card I would tick the box that said 'homeowner' but I could not produce the deeds to my house as they were held at the bank. So even though I could say that I owned my home, in reality the bank owned it. The same situation could exist regarding Ibrox, with the holding company owning it and leasing it back to the club. Since nobody knows whether the accounts refer to the club or the holding company, or even who signed them off, there's probably all manner of jiggery-pokery going on.
So what's the betting that Ersatz FC is going to go the same way as its predecessor? To be honest, I don't think any bookie would give you very good odds on that. So are the Ersatzers worried? Not a chance. It has already been shown that liquidition holds no fears for them. Even when their club dies all it needs is some crook to pick up the assets for a song from dodgy administrators. We all know what happens next. This, however, has set a dangerous precedent; no club need fear going into liquidation. All they need to do is the same as Green did and Hey Presto! All the debts are wiped and you can still call yourselves the same club. The only thing is: would any other club in Scotland be allowed to get away with this?
No comment could do this justice!
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